Chopping olives is an important method for salvaging less than top grade whole olives. In one method, the olives are first pitted and then fed into an Elliot-type chopper. In such a machine, the olives are chopped by stainless steel circular knives running against a rubber coated pulley. As the olives pass by the knives, they are diced in random sizes. Consequently, the olive product does not have an even character. The different sizes result in a "C" USDA grade product.
There are several other problems with chopping olives using an Elliot-type chopper. An Elliot chopper will tend to break pits so that it is possible to get five centimeter or larger pit fragments mixed with the finished product. Although most such fragments can be removed by a brine flotation process, consumers occasionally will break teeth on some of the smaller pit fragments which leads to product liability lawsuits and settlement payments.
There is a nub of meat attached to the olive pit called the pit cap. This is a potentially usable product which currently is not completely recovered by processes using an Elliot-type chopper machine. Instead, the pit cap is left on the pits when the olives are originally pitted and eventually become waste material.
There is need for a method for chopping olives which produces a product having an even character. The need extends to a method that avoids breaking olive pits and introducing pit fragments into the product.